Autobiography
by gorgeousbowneyes
Summary: This is about Harper Lee and Truman Capote. It was written for an English Assignment, with a word limit of 600. I liked the idea behind this and thought that I might post it here. Please read the AN at the bottom and review!


**Autobiography**

I feel them sear down my face, a burning reminder of my sorrow. I watch as tear after tear drops from my face, and onto my lap, my chest, my hands, anywhere possible for gravity to take them. I let them fall freely, knowing that the pain inside needs something to use as a release. I would never have imagined that love could hurt this much, could cause me so much grief over the years. Love wasn't supposed to be like this. The fairytales always said that they fell in love and lived happily ever after, but then, when was life ever a fairytale? We relate love to joy and happiness, but I feel this is a huge miss-understanding. Love is the embodiment of torture. All it ever did for me was leave me depressed and broken, a pain in my heart I can never ease. All I ever wanted was his love, and that was something he would never give me, at least not in the way I wanted.

I first met Truman Capote when I was a young girl. I lived in the small town of Monroeville, and he had moved in as the boy next door. I was only two years old when he first moved in, but I remember a few little things, glimpses of the past, of how even at four years of age he wanted to write. I have more memories of him from when I was slightly older. I remember climbing trees and playing tag with him, my siblings and I. I remember the time I fell out of the tree, and grazed my knee, and he climbed all the way down to help me up again. But as we got older, he wasn't as interested in playing games anymore. He was only seven, but he was determined that writing was his passion and was constantly seen with is dictionary, or closeted up in his house writing his stories. At five years old myself, I couldn't understand a boy who would prefer staying inside to playing tag. Then, when I was seven, he moved away from Monroeville.

At such a young age, keeping in contact was impossible. All I knew was that my best friend had moved away and left me to my brothers and sisters. As I grew older, I never forgot my earliest friend, and determined to find him and get to know him again. The first time I saw him again, he was twenty-one and already a published author. The instant I saw him I was struck by a feeling I didn't recognise, a flip of the stomach, a burning in my heart. I put it down to joy at seeing my best friend again. We gradually got to know each other, and I realised I was in love with him, that the love I felt wasn't platonic love. And then he told me he was gay.

My world came crashing down. How could I have been so stupid? Of course he was gay, everything pointed towards it, but my infatuation with him had blinded me of the truth. Here I was, believing that someday he would find the courage to tell me that he was feeling the same as I did, a delusion created in my mind that some day we would be together. But that was never to be. I tried to forget my feelings for him, never letting down the mask of the loving best friend that he knew so well. I tried to love someone else, to move on with my life, but it didn't work. I have never married; my love for Truman was too strong.

I dropped out of my University. I couldn't concentrate on anything anymore, and I needed to get away. I left for New York. I worked as an 'airline reservations clerk,' nothing special, but it paid the bills. I managed to put most thoughts of Truman behind me at the time, even though we still kept in contact. Finally, encouraged by my friends, I quit my job and decided to write full time. Little did I know that it would bring back all my feelings for Truman. I had seen many of his literary works become best sellers, and had experienced first hand his addiction for fame. It was all he wanted, to be famous, to be known as someone who had created a great work of literature. And I had seen the way the press had attacked him or praised him. He wrote about me in one of his books, the caring best friend to a homosexual man. I knew that was all I ever would be to him, and it hurt.

It took me a year to write my novel, _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and I incorporated Truman into the story as well, my best friend. He was Dill. "I never expected any sort of success with _Mockingbird_. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected."(Harper Lee, Wikipedia) I didn't want to be consumed by fame, just as Truman had been. I had seen the effects on him it had, and he always wanted more. Nevertheless, it became a hit, and eventually I did promise another novel to follow it.

But as the years progress, and I procrastinated, the idea became less and less appealing. And then Truman died. It was sudden, although I had been expecting something to happen to him for quite some time. His addiction to fame and alcohol finally killed him. I feel so empty with him gone, a husk of my former self. There isn't an inspiration left in me to write. And so I'll sit here, consumed by my pain and the love I never got to experience, wasting away. The tears haven't slowed, the pain will never cease, and my thoughts of him will never fade.

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AN: Written for an English Task a few months ago. Could have been better - I got a B. The word limit was 600. It's written as if I were Harper Lee writing an autobiography, but technically it's a immaginative biography. Please Review! (Oh by the way, do NOT copy this for any assignment you might have 'coz I own it because it's not really a 'Fanfiction'.)


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